Martini Talk: The Glorious Ones & Liz Callaway

Yes, yes, I know.  I have yet to voice an opinion on that most controversial issue which has been polarizing the New York theatre community for the past three weeks.  Well, the time has come for me to stand firm on my beliefs, though I know doing so may turn some of my dearest friends against me forever.  But a man must fight for what he thinks is right, no matter how much others may mock him for it.  So here goes.

I kinda liked The Glorious Ones.

Really, at the risk of having Michael Feingold strike me down with a bolt of lightening for saying it, I had a good time.  Lynn Ahrens (book and lyrics) and Stephen Flaherty's (music) adaptation of Francine Prose's historical novel about Flaminio Scala's commedia dell'arte troupe is a sweet, energetic and loveable little show that may not exactly soar with melody or glorious writing, but its heart is in the right place and the singers don't scream at you.  Sometimes, that's all it takes to make me happy.

But I might be tempted to use the word glorious when writing about the performance of Marc Kudisch, a classical musical theatre leading man who combines the verbal swagger of Alfred Drake, the robust sexuality of Howard Keel and the satirical edge of Jack Cassidy with a rich, expressive and theatre-filling baritone.  The role of Flaminio Scala, a brash 16th century actor who assembles a band of traveling players to perform improvised comedies based on stock characters and his own scenarios, only to have them rebel against him in favor of trying the new trend of (gasp!) scripted plays, provides a worthy vehicle for him to deliver a rousing star performance.  Sinking his teeth into juicy lines like, "Great art loves to fail," and passionately declaring his desire to have his art remembered in the anthem soliloquy, "I Was Here," Marc Kudisch proves himself more than capable of creating memorable Broadway performances in starring roles if only the types of shows suited to his talents (you know… strong acting and singing) would be produced.

Other delights to be had in director/choreographer Graciela Daniele's celebratory production are performances by the ravishingly mellow-voiced Natalie Venetia Belcon as leading lady Columbina (Avenue Q's original Gary Coleman was apparently hiding quite a womanly figure.), physical comic John Kassir and Julyana Soelistyo as the dwarf in love with Scala.  (Although political correctness may make me feel slightly uncomfortable about calling the performance of a dwarf adorable, heck, she's adorable.)

Perhaps the most severe flaw of The Glorious Ones is that its message of how these traveling improvisers influenced the comedy of today, so wonderfully expressed in its tear-jerking final moments, isn't sufficiently supported by enough funny business during the preceding 100 minutes.  Still, you can accurately call this one a musical charmedy.

The last time Liz Callaway played a second performance of a solo cabaret engagement in New York, the buzz had barely begun about that new Stephen Sondheim/Harold Prince/George Furth musical based on an old Kaufman and Hart play.  Nine months prior to her Broadway debut in the chorus of that musical, Merrily We Roll Along, Callaway completed her first extended cabaret run, a month of Sundays at The Duplex.  That's the old Duplex at 55 Grove Street, which four years later would become Rose's Turn.

But the funny thing is that this mother of a 17-year-old still pretty much looks and sounds like a kid in her 20's as she takes the stage of The Metropolitan Room.  (She and Marilyn Maye must be taking the same vitamins.)  Though she may quote Sondheim's "There Won't Be Trumpets," her wonderfully vibrant clarion vocals defy such predictions.  Hers is a voice that blares without bellowing, lightly piercing the air in what sounds like an effortless soar.  The top notes of Stephen Schwartz's "Meadowlark," a song she began using regularly in her pre-Broadway singing waitress days, glisten from her pipes, as does the climax of Merrily's "Not A Day Goes By," which she learned while understudying Ann Morrison.  Her performance of David Shire and Richard Maltby, Jr.'s "The Story Goes On," that perfect emotional rush about a young expectant mother's realizations as she feels her unborn child's first kick, is just as breathtakingly fresh and immediate as it was when she introduced the number in Baby twenty-three years ago.

Called Between Flights because she managed to schedule this run during a brief break in her heavy world-wide concert schedule (She just completed three concerts in Korea and when this engagement is done she's off to the Stephen Sondheim Theatre Center in Iowa.), Callaway seems very pleased to be back in New York where audience members get her musical theatre jokes.  Though she kids about worrying if her set includes enough Broadway music to please her New York fans (she confronts audience members with a mock-defiant "You Don't Own Me") it's a nicely eclectic mix of showtunes (the very funny "What Do We Do?  We Fly!" from Do I Hear A Waltz? ain't exactly a cabaret standard) and popular classics like "Where Have All The Flowers Gone," and "Leavin' On A Jet Plane."

If there's anything lacking in her program, it's the darker textures and surprising interpretations that can be explored through the intimacy of cabaret.  Callaway has a perfectly delightful, upbeat presence and music director/pianist Alex Rybeck's arrangements (MaryAnn`McSweeny is at bass with Ron Tierno at drums) show off her voice and sense of fun very well, but her lyric interpretations can stand to dig a little deeper, particularly during quieter ballads.  But that's a minor quibble based on my own taste.

Oh, and one more interesting fact.  When introducing her husband Dan, who was in the audience on opening night, Callaway told how they first met when he started pursuing her at the stage door after seeing the first preview of Baby.  So take heart, stage door stalkers.  Fantasies do come true. 

She was known as The Iron Maiden of Broadway during her years at Barbara Matera's Costume House, where it was her responsibility to make sure the material which would be transformed into dazzlingly designed costumes for A Chorus Line, A Little Night Music and 42nd Sreet, among others (including an Off-Broadway gay male version of The Women called The Bitches), would always be wrinkle free.  The former Leeann Gatchell, who took the last name of hubby Don Cross, now resides in Florida, but a new theatre project by their cabaret singing daughter Margaret has brought her back to the fabric game, only this time its to design animal hand puppets for the York Theatre Company's Developmental Reading Series production of A Flanders and Swann House Party.

Those terribly clever Brits Michael Flanders and Donald Swann, whose work still enjoys a loyal following today, were most popular in the 50's and 60's, singing their comical creations such as "(Have Some) Madeira, M'dear," "The Wompom," and "The Hippopotamus Song (Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud)" on Broadway and in the West End.  Their collection titled "The Bestiary of Flanders and Swann" includes ditties honoring the gnu, the warthog and the armadillo.  (That's where the puppets come in, if you haven't guessed.)  Created by the younger Cross and John O'Creagh, A Flanders and Swann House Party will feature Margaret Cross, Lorinne Lampert, Paul Nugent, Buzz Roddy, and Bill Weeden (who knows a thing or two about writing terribly clever songs himself) with Kat Sherrell at the piano.  The show (Thursday night at 7:30) is free but space is limited, so call 212-935-5824, ext. 24 for reservations.

Michael Dale's Martini Talk appears every Monday and Thursday in BroadwayWorld.com.

Top photo by Joan Marcus: Marc Kudisch in The Glorious Ones; Center photo by Bill Westmoreland: Liz Callaway; Bottom photo by Don Cross: Leeann Cross